Murat Yukselir/The Globe and Mail
Throwback Summer: Take a page from the 20th century – a 10-week guide on how to bring back the adventure of summer.
You can't blame kids for never getting off the couch when they have Call of Duty at their fingertips. Have you played that game? It's incredible. And kids today take it for granted that video games are mind-blowing. But anyone who grew up pumping quarters into an arcade machine knows otherwise.
So strike this deal with your kids: If they want to spend an entire summer day playing vids, then the only ones they can fire up are 8-bit.
Anyone who's grown up with World of Warcraft is going to be bored out of their minds in 10 minutes of playing Bubble Bobble. To them, Double Dragon will be a joke (what do they know, right?).
They'll learn to appreciate how good they've got it. More importantly, they'll put down their controllers and go looking for something else to do – preferably something outdoors.
Dave McGinn